It is paradoxical, to say the least, that the woman responsible for one of the most famous champagnes, La Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin, remains so little known. In 2008, professor and wine expert Tilar Mazzeo published a biography that shed light on a remarkable career. Fifteen years later, the book inspired a film adaptation, Widow Clicquotwhere Haley Bennett delivers a fiery and passionate performance as the famous widow.
At the end of the 18th centurye century, Barbe-Nicole Ponsardin, 21, married François Clicquot in an arranged marriage. Barely six years later, she was a widow. Having inherited the deceased’s various businesses, including the family vineyard, the young woman made a first gesture of defiance by refusing to sell them, choosing instead to take over their management. This, not without having to convince her father-in-law to support her.
She went against the grain again by deciding to limit her previously diversified activities to the sole production of champagne, inventing a new manufacturing technique in the process.
All of these events, and many more, are revisited in Erin Dignam’s (Land), which maintains its focus on the protagonist at all times. It is Barbe’s (Haley Bennett) journey, her experience, her personal and professional tribulations, period.
On the private side, even if it was short, the marriage between Barbe and François is explored in depth, finely, and with the element of fiction inherent in cinema.
And this is where the decision of director Thomas Napper, together with Haley Bennett, also a producer, to change the initial linear structure for a non-linear one in the early days of filming was decisive. As the two collaborators explained to us in an interview, within this alternative construction that does not change the story, but simply the order in which it is told, past and present fit together and echo each other.
This bias appears particularly judicious during the matrimonial passages. Thus the first flashbacks are very romantic, since they correspond to Barbe’s idealized reminiscences at the very beginning of her widowhood.
Gradually, however, the past unfolds in a less romantic, more nuanced light, in line with the heroine’s acceptance of the fact that her marriage was not a sinecure. From this realization, Barbe will draw great agency, although given her journey, it is obvious that she did not lack it.
Elegantly crafted
Perfectly in tune, Haley Bennett brilliantly modulates the evolution of the force, at first quiet, then cumulative, which drives her character.
As for Thomas Napper, Widow Clicquot is only his second feature film (after Jawboneunpublished), but you should know that the director learned his trade as an assistant to filmmaker Joe Wright (Atonement/Atonement ; Darkest Hour/The Darkest Hour), here co-producer (and Haley Bennett’s city partner).
Elegantly staged, with here and there small moments touched by grace, the film is pleasant to the eye from start to finish. No wonder, considering that illustrious collaborators have put their all into it, including the director of photography Caroline Champetier (The Little Lieutenant ; men and gods ; Holy Motors ; Annette) and editor Richard Marizy (Anthony Zimmer ; La vie en rose/The kid ; Jappeloup).
Finally, at just under an hour and a half, Widow Clicquot avoids lengths, unlike many period films confusing “duration” and “prestige”. In short, a biography that is both effervescent and balanced, like a good champagne, which could not be more appropriate.